I'll just let that picture up there start the post. Yes, that's right- it happened. Two Alpacka pack-rafts arrived at our house recently. This opens up a massive amount of self-shuttled river rafting for us. The possibilities are nearly endless when you can haul your bike with your raft and haul your raft with your bike.
This was not the maiden voyage for our rafts, that happened a week ago when we paddled with friends to Hickory Ridge Campground. It was touch-and-go the week prior, as to whether or not we'd even be able to go along. The rafts and gear came in on Friday (after some phone-calls and a shipment redirection), and we paddled out on Saturday morning without ever trying anything beforehand. It was a pretty awesome trip which I unfortunately didn't get any pictures of to use here. On the return leg, the waves were big enough that you would lose track of people on occasion because the swells were so big - couldn't have asked for more!
Today was to be a much tamer flat-water trip. Stuff dumped out of the car and getting ready to go.
Corrine using an inflation bag to get her raft filled up. I was amazed at how fast this goes.
A couple minutes later, you have this:
Dry-bag strapped on and heading out.
A somewhat rare shot of me.
We turned around in a little cove/cesspool and headed back to finish up in our limited time.
Already back to the ramp to head out. We'd averaged about 2.5mph up to this point with pretty easy-going effort, which I was pretty happy with, since these boats are not designed for long distance flat-water paddling. Now to find a few rapids and get some real use out of them!
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